NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Jan 17, 2013) - ECHOLOCATION, a Brooklyn based technology company, has received $200,000 in initial funding for the continued development of its location-based, microblogging application for smartphones. Early investors in the company include TechLaunch (New Jersey's premier technology accelerator), Casabona Ventures, and individual angel investors including Ira Cohen and Craig Sher. The company will be showcasing its technology at the SXSW Festival in March, connecting attendees with each other and the best local information around the event.
Echo is the company's mobile, microblogging application that connects users to highly relevant information about their location via 140 character messages. When a user opens the application it automatically detects which city or neighborhood they are in, and provides them with the most recent content from Echo users in that location. In addition to user-generated content, echo also sources content from local blogs and news outlets. We currently connect users to more than 200,000 local news stories from over 1,000 sources.
Echo also uses hierarchical content indexing. This allows users to access feeds not only for their current neighborhood, but also out for their town, county, state, country, and in other locations all over the World. Its interface is designed to be aesthetically pleasing as well as highly functional, making it simple to access the location feeds from almost anywhere in the application.
"Our mission for Echo is to create a simple way for people to communicate with others near their current location," said Brian Donohue, CEO and founder of Echo. "We are building a crucial infrastructure missing from the mobile web: location-based messaging. Our goal is to change the way people interact with their environment on their mobile devices by connecting them to highly relevant content around their current location."
Brian Donohue and Rocky Chiu founded the company in 2011 and are currently working out of the NYU Poly Incubator in DUMBO, Brooklyn. The company recently completed the TechLaunch accelerator program in New Jersey. Through the program the team met several of its initial angel investors and received funding directly from TechLaunch.
Echo is currently available on iOS, and there are plans to use a portion of the seed funding to expand to other platforms. Echo will remain free for users and generate revenue from local business subscriptions and advertising. The company is seeking additional funding in 2013.
About ECHOLOCATION
ECHOLOCATION is a Brooklyn based technology company founded in 2011 by Brian Donohue and Rocky Chiu. The company is the developer of ECHO, a mobile, microblogging application that connects users to highly relevant information about their location via 140 character messages. The company has received investment capital from TechLaunch, New Jersey's premier technology accelerator along with individual angel investors. More information can be found at www.echolocation.com
Contact Information:
Contact Information
Chris Capra
echo@emergingmediapr.com
212-922-5885